Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Democratic presidential contender Martin O’Malley soon
may be a footnote in history, but he made news the other day by simply showing
up.

Braving a blizzard, O’Malley made it to Tama, Iowa,
population 2,877, and found exactly one voter waiting for him.

“The very last event of the night, we actually had a
whopping total of one person show up, but by God, he was glad to see me. So we
spent the time with him,” O’Malley told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Tuesday.

O’Malley sat and talked with the man, identified
only as Kenneth, about Syrian refugees, prison reform and other issues. In the
end, though, Kenneth remained undecided. He needs to see some other candidates
before making up his mind.

Of course he does. Iowa and New Hampshire voters expect
to see the whites of presidential candidates’ eyes while voters elsewhere rarely
catch a glimpse a contender in the flesh.

As the election year begins, candidates and the news
media are focused on the first four contests – Iowa caucuses Feb. 1, New
Hampshire primary Feb. 9, and South Carolina’s Republican primary and Nevada’s
Democratic caucuses Feb. 20.

This year, though, another date looms large -- March
1. That’s Super Tuesday, when a dozen states hold presidential primaries or
caucuses, the most on a single day. They are: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas,
Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas,
Vermont and Virginia.

Some have dubbed March 1
the “SEC primary” after the Southeastern Conference in college sports.

After the first Super Tuesday in 1988, former
Virginia Gov. Chuck Robb, an architect of Super Tuesday, said it was intended
to “reduce the influence of the so-called Iowa syndrome” and nationalize the
political message. Southern Democrats also hoped it would give the region more clout.

It hasn’t worked out that way, but in 2016 Super
Tuesday may live up to its potential. It could do what Iowa and New Hampshire
likely won’t do – winnow the crowded Republican field.

Super Tuesday states are getting more attention than
usual. Ted Cruz took a bus tour of the South last summer and blitzed a dozen
cities in a week in December. Marco Rubio stumped in Georgia and announced
dozens of endorsements in Virginia. He plans a rally in Texas Jan. 6.

Donald Trump drew a huge crowd to a rally in Mobile,
Ala., in August. Just how many attended was in
dispute – he claimed 31,000 while some media outlets estimated about 20,000.

Determined to be ignored no more, Alabama Secretary
of State John H. Merrill, a Republican, says he will promote visits by
candidates of both parties, although deep red Alabama draws more Republican contenders.

Trump conceded the other day that he might not win
Iowa. He was looking ahead to Super Tuesday when he lambasted Virginia
Republicans for requiring a party loyalty pledge to vote in the primary. The
pledge -- “My signature below indicates that I am a Republican” -- could turn
off independents and Democrats who might be Trump voters.

Iowa’s record picking nominees is dismal. Rick
Santorum won the Republican caucuses in 2012 and Mike Huckabee won in 2008. After
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina dropped his presidential bid the other day,
Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad said Graham told him he had learned two things about
Iowa: “You need to love Jesus and ethanol.”

Mitt Romney and John McCain won the New Hampshire
primary in 2012 and 2008, respectively, and both became the party’s
presidential nominees.

In the 2008 Democratic contests, Barack Obama won in
Iowa – and Hillary Clinton came in third, behind John Edwards. She won the New
Hampshire primary that year.

The hard truth is that most presidential candidates
end up as also-rans. If they’re lucky, they may be remembered for a good line. Mo
Udall was a Democratic congressman from Arizona when he ran for president in
1976. He finished second in six primaries the year Jimmy Carter rode his win in
the Iowa caucuses to victory.

Udall often
told a story about meeting some elderly fellows in a barber shop in New
Hampshire, where he said, “I’m Mo Udall, and I’m running for president of the
United States.”

“Yeah,” the barber replied, “We were just laughing
about that this morning.”

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

We’re on the cusp of
a new year, so it must be prediction season, that magical time when we’re all
authorities on the future.

As predictions for
2016 begin to flow, the urge seems irresistible to bloviate about the presidential
election even though no one – and I mean no
one – knows for sure what will happen.

Florida Sen. Marco
Rubio will be the Republican presidential nominee, and he will tap South
Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as his running mate, proclaims Fortune, which also
predicts Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will pick Sen. Tim
Kaine of Virginia as her veep.

Really? It’s not that
those are bad guesses. Rubio is the hope of many Republicans who want to dump
Trump, and Haley said she’ll consider joining the GOP ticket if asked. Clinton
is, well, Clinton, and Kaine represents a swing state that could be crucial.

But such scenarios assume
a logical electorate – and when did the 2016 campaign become logical?

Only a year ago, as 2015
dawned and predictions proliferated, no one saw Hurricane Donald coming. Trump didn’t
even jump into the race until June, although it seems he’s been in forever.

We don’t know what we
don’t know about 2016.

But here’s why
predictions are both beauty and beast: They exist in a judgment-free zone. In
our talky age, anyone who speaks with confidence can predict with impunity.

A year ago, the writer
of a predictions piece in the British newspaper the Telegraph ticked through
the list of Democratic and Republican contenders and confided to his readers that
former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is “my personal favourite to win the
nomination and the White House – although I’m probably in a minority of two in
that opinion (me and Mr. Huckabee).”

OK, but why?

In its “The World in
2016” issue, The Economist confidently declares, “Hillary Clinton will be the
candidate to beat in the race for the White House,” and “someone like” Rubio will
win the GOP’s nod. But Clinton will probably eke out a victory in November,
unless other factors intervene, the reporter opines. With that much wiggle
room, it’s hard to be wrong.

The art of looking ahead apparently approves of alliteration. The
Economist says 2016 “can be summed up in three words: woes, women and wins.” The
primary season will be “short and sharp.” The campaign: “cruel, costly and
close.”

Most predictions are
like those lists of what’s In and Out – clever opinion. Or the vague horoscopes
in the morning paper -- fun but hardly definitive.

Fortunately, some
thoughtful people are weighing in. As
2015 ends, political scientist Larry Sabato and his colleagues at the
University of Virginia’s Center for Politics still rate the general election “a
coin flip,” based on statistics and research. That’s good enough for me. I
don’t need to declare an election before the voting even starts.

In two decades of
studying predictions, professor Philip E. Tetlock found that a dart-throwing
chimp has nearly as much accuracy in forecasting the future as so-called experts
in politics, economics and journalism.

Tetlock’s 2005 book
-- “Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?” – deflated a
lot of hot air balloons. He evaluated the accuracy of 82,361 forecasts and
found that about 15 percent of the things the experts dismissed as having
little or no chance of occurring actually did happen. Of the things the experts
claimed surely would happen, about 27 percent did not.

Tetlock, who teaches psychology
and management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, now says there
are ways to improve our forecasting abilities so we can beat the chimp.

His new book,
“Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction,” written with journalist
Dan Gardner, includes such techniques as keeping an open mind and gathering
facts.

We may always wish
for experts, super or not. In 1980, Wharton professor J. Scott Armstrong
invented the “seersucker theory.” After reviewing a dozen studies about experts
and their advice, Armstrong proposed: “No matter how much evidence exists that
seers do not exist, suckers will pay for the existence of seers.”

When you see predictions
about 2016, think of the dart-throwing chimp -- and don’t be a seer-sucker.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

We blame the 20th century for ruining just
about everything, but people were lamenting the commercialism of Christmas long
before “A Charlie Brown Christmas” first aired on TV in 1965.

The animated special, beloved by generations, calls
out the secularism of Christmas and includes a passage from the Gospel of Luke.

It may surprise you to know that authors have criticized
the crass materialism of Christmas since before the Civil War.

In 1850, two years before she wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,”
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a short story called “Christmas, or the Good Fairy”
that ran on the front page of a Washington paper. As the story opens, a young
woman character with “jeweled fingers” says:

“`Oh, dear! Christmas is coming in a fortnight, and
I have got to think up presents for everybody!… Dear me, it’s so tedious!
Everybody has got everything that can be thought of.’”

Even though she has the means to buy whatever she
fancies and every shop is “glittering with all manner of splendors,” she’s at a
loss. She hates the wretched excess of the season.

After a gentle reminder from her aunt about the true
meaning of Christmas, though, the young woman has a change of perspective and sees
Christmas differently.

Historian Stephen Nissenbaum cites the Stowe story
in his fascinating 1996 book, “The Battle for Christmas,” which dispels many myths
about Christmas in America in the alleged good old days.

There was so much excess spirit and spirits during
Christmas carnival revelries in the early 19th century that a
movement formed to take Christmas off the streets and into homes, Nissenbaum
recounts. Giving gifts soon followed. And commercialism. And stress.

“As soon as the Thanksgiving turkey is eaten, the
great question of buying Christmas presents begins to take the terrifying shape
it has come assume in recent years,” a New York paper wrote in 1894.

Unlike our forebears, though, we have the benefit of
social science research to ease some of that anxiety. Here are three tips from
academic studies:

#1 -- Don’t try to be too creative. If someone tells
you what he wants, go for it.

Trying to pick a more thoughtful, impressive gift
can backfire. Recipients are more appreciative and think the giver is more
thoughtful when they get what they ask for, says Frank Flynn, an organizational
behavior expert at Stanford University.

Also, recipients don’t
appreciate expensive gifts that much more than less expensive presents, he says.
This leads us to:

#2 – Back off the stocking stuffers. Less really is
more.

If you want to surprise someone with a generous
gift, you could choose an expensive cashmere sweater – or, if you can afford
it, you might buy the sweater and tuck in something extra, like a $10 gift
card. Resist the urge to do the latter.

Adding the stocking stuffer diminishes the value of
the main gift, says Kimberlee Weaver, a marketing professor at Virginia Tech.
The giver inadvertently cheapens the overall perception of the gift by being
more generous.

“The luxury sweater represents a generous `big’
gift. Adding on a `little’ gift makes the total package seem less big,” she
says.

But that doesn’t mean the gift card itself is a bad
idea.

#3 – It’s OK to give money or a gift card.

For the last nine years, the most requested gift in
America has been the gift card, the National Retail Federation reports. Gift
givers tend to think cash is crass and overly practical, and that givers want
fancier gifts. Receivers, though, like choosing their own.

“Givers think fancier gifts will cause them to be
more liked, will show they care more, and will make their friends happier,” researchers
from Yale, University of Southern California and New York University say. Not
so. Practical gifts accomplish all that.

Stowe had it right. “There are worlds of money
wasted, at this time of year, in getting things that nobody wants, and nobody
cares for after they are got,” she wrote.

So remember what Christmas is all about. Remember Linus
in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” reciting from the Gospel of Luke: “Glory to God
in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.”

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Donald J. Trump defended his proposal to ban all
Muslims from entering the country by citing President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

“This is a president highly respected by all; he did
the same thing,” Trump said Tuesday on ABC.

I needed a refresher on FDR. What I found was
dismaying – and instructive.

Within weeks of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt
issued three presidential proclamations declaring Japanese, German and Italian
immigrants who were not naturalized citizens “enemy aliens.” The proclamations
ordered these residents to turn in their guns, ammunition, cameras, short-wave
radios and other items and imposed other restrictions.

Soon after, in February 1942, FDR then issued Executive
Order 9066. It gave the military the power to ban any citizen from a swath of
Washington state, California and southern Arizona and led to the relocation -- without
any charges or trials -- of 120,000 Japanese Americans.

Many who were herded onto trains bound for 10
internment camps in remote parts of the West and South were American citizens.

Trump insists that he’s not proposing internment
camps, but, as we see from FDR’s experience, letting fear dictate policy is a
slippery slope. While many Republicans have rightly condemned Trump’s proposal,
his fans – even some in elective office -- approve.

“What he’s saying is no different than the situation
during World War II, when we put the Japanese in camps,” New Hampshire state
Rep. Al Baldasaro, co-chairman of Trump’s state veterans coalition, told a
Manchester TV station.

Instead of likening himself to FDR, Trump should
have cited Ronald Reagan, who apologized for the terrible injustice perpetrated
in World War II.

“Here we admit a wrong,” President Reagan said when
he signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, in which the federal government
provided restitution to Japanese Americans who were interned. The government
gave $20,000 each to about 60,000 survivors, a pittance for lost years, homes
and careers.

You can read Reagan’s quotation at the National
Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism in World War II just north of the U.S.
Capitol. The memorial commemorates not only a shameful chapter in American history
but also the loyalty and bravery of Japanese Americans who served the country
in war even as their families were being held in camps.

Few tourists find their
way to the memorial, in what amounts to a traffic island at the intersection of
Louisiana and New Jersey avenues and D Street NW. Few read the 800 names
inscribed on stone panels of Japanese American troops who were killed in action.

The Army’s 442nd
Regimental Combat Team was a segregated unit composed entirely of Nisei, first-generation
Japanese American citizens. The 442nd fought in eight major campaigns in Europe
and became the most highly decorated unit for its size and length of service.

At the center of the
memorial, two bronze cranes entangled in barbed wire rise 14 feet. In Japan,
the crane is an icon of longevity and good luck. Here, they symbolize the
struggle over cruel circumstances. The memorial is intended to tell not only
the story of Japanese Americans but of all Americans’ patriotism and
perseverance.

Trump justifies his ban on Muslims’ entering the
country because we are at war, although there are Muslims serving in our armed
forces in the fight against terrorism.

Some of these heroes rest in Arlington
National Cemetery.

Reagan said in 1988 about the mistreatment of
Japanese Americans: “Yes, the nation was then at war, struggling for its
survival and it’s not for us today to pass judgment upon those who may have
made mistakes while engaged in that great struggle. Yet we must recognize that
the internment of Japanese Americans was just that: a mistake.”

The Japanese Americans
memorial group raised $13 million to build the memorial, which was dedicated in
2000 and now is part of the National Park Service.

The memorial does not just look back in history. It also
offers a way forward, thanks to a quotation from the late Sen. Daniel K.
Inouye, D- Hawaii. The son of Japanese immigrants, Inouye enlisted in the Army when
the 442nd was created and lost his right arm fighting in Europe.

“The lessons learned must remain as a grave reminder
of what we must not allow to happen again to any group,” Inouye said. Amen.

Thursday, December 3, 2015

After 9/11, a patriotic impulse swept the United
States. Flags waved on every corner and everybody wanted to do something to
fight terrorism. But not everyone wanted to, or could, volunteer for the military.

President George W. Bush urged people to go to
Disneyland. And so the moment was wasted.

Today, less than 1 percent of Americans serves in the
military. Over the last 14 years, we have grown increasingly disconnected from
one other and more distrustful of government. Many lament our lack of civility
and poisonous politics but feel powerless to change anything.

Fewer and fewer experiences unite us as Americans. Even
the occasions that many people share – like donating to a good cause on Giving
Tuesday – we do alone.

But there’s hope. While some problems, like the horrifying
gun violence we saw in California on Wednesday, seem intractable, bipartisan
support is coalescing around a way that could bring us together: voluntary
national service.

The Aspen Institute Franklin Project is promoting
the idea that every American 18 to 28 should have the opportunity to spend a
year in full time, fully paid public service in an area such as health,
poverty, conservation or education.

The project envisions that a million young people
would participate by 2023. The year of service would become a cultural
expectation and rite of passage, much as serving in the military once was. National
service would not be mandated but highly encouraged, perhaps with tuition
forgiveness, a new G.I. bill and other perks.

“There’s something about service that’s essential to
citizenship,” retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, former commander of U.S.
forces in Afghanistan and chairman of the Franklin Project, said at a panel
discussion Monday at the Aspen Institute in Washington. “It’s what defines a
nation.”

World War II put 16 million Americans in uniform,
but everybody was asked to do something. National service would create alumni
similarly invested in the country’s future, McChrystal said.

The Franklin Project’s blue-ribbon Leadership
Council includes former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza
Rice, NAACP former president Benjamin Jealous, former Secretary of Defense
Robert Gates and former NBC News anchor and author Tom Brokaw. Also, Virginia first lady Dorothy McAuliffe and College of
William and Mary President W. Taylor Reveley III.

They’re hoping to jumpstart national service. Since
John F. Kennedy created the Peace Corps in 1961, presidents have tried to
expand national service. In 2008, both presidential candidates -- Barack Obama
and John McCain – promised to make national service a priority.

President Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve
America Act in 2009, proclaiming a “new era of service.” The law was supposed
to expand AmeriCorps from 75,000 to 250,000 individuals. AmeriCorps members are
neither volunteers nor employees. They receive stipends to cover living
expenses, health insurance, child care and, upon completion of their term of
service, education grants.

Some conservatives oppose “paid volunteerism,” and Congress
never provided funding for the expansion. The Franklin Project is looking to
enlist the private sector to pay for public service opportunities.

President Obama last year started Employers of
National Service which links AmeriCorps and Peace Corps alumni with employers.
More than 150 companies, nonprofits, public agencies and cities, including
Philadelphia and Nashville, have signed on to give alumni a boost in
recruitment, hiring and promotions.

Virginia became the
first state Employer of National Service in January. State agencies are directed to recruit
AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps alumni and to consider public service as part of
the hiring process.

On the 2016 presidential campaign trail, Hillary
Clinton promises to expand AmeriCorps to 250,000 individuals by 2017 and would
allow those who commit to service to graduate from in-state colleges debt-free.
Other candidates in both parties support expanding national service to varying
degrees.

Many more young people want to serve than can currently
be accommodated. About half a million people apply for the 75,000 AmeriCorps
slots. This year, more than 44,100 people, most of them recent college
graduates, applied for 4,000 Teach for America jobs.

Some high schools and colleges require public
service for graduation. Arizona State University opened a Public Service Academy
this fall that is believed to be the first undergraduate program in the country
similar to ROTC for students who want to work in the volunteer sector.

Young Americans are yearning to serve their country.
Let’s give them the chance – and build stronger communities and a more robust
citizenry in the process. We can’t afford to waste another moment.

A man rides his bike along the boardwalk in Hollywood, Florida. States are trying to become more bike-friendly to attract tourists and pump up their economies.

Cities and states have long urged their residents to ride bicycles, as a healthy form of recreation and as a green alternative to driving. Now they’re recognizing pedal power’s economic potential.

Tourism officials and cycling advocates sometimes refer to tourists on bicycles as “wallets on wheels.” That’s because they stay longer in a state and spend more per day than other tourists. Oregon, for example, has found that bicycle tourism contributes $400 million a year to its economy—roughly $1.1 million a day. It was the first state to create a Bike Friendly Business Program that helps businesses market to bicycle tourists.

Other states are pursuing similar strategies. In September, Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper declared that Colorado would spend $100 million over four years to make itself “the best state for biking in the country.” Washington, ranked the most bike-friendly state for eight consecutive years by the League of American Bicyclists, in July committed more than $500 million in state and federal funds over 16 years for biking and walking projects. Also this summer Florida approved $25 million annually to connect bicycle paths around the state into a new, statewide network.

“Biking can be such a positive force, and I think being the best biking state is going to fuel economic growth and tourism,” Hickenlooper said. “It’s going to lead us toward a cleaner environment, and it’s going to help us be the healthiest state in America.”

Touring cyclists, who tend to be older and wealthier, are especially valuable to a state’s economic health. They stay in smaller towns and support locally-owned bed-and-breakfasts, motels, cafes, craft breweries and shops. Other tourists tend to patronize national chains, economic analyses have found.

In Montana, which welcomes about half a million bicycle tourists a year, “it was an eye-opener that bicycle tourists spent more” than other tourists, said Norma Polovitz Nickerson, director of the Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research at the University of Montana.

“This might not be the largest tourism niche, but everybody’s interested in boosting the local economy. Bicycle touring has very little impact on the landscape, and it comes with a nice economic bonus,” she said.

Nickerson conducted a study in late 2013 that found touring cyclists in Montana were on average 52 years old, spent on average $75 per day and stayed eight nights or more. Touring is defined as spending at least one night away from home, state residents included. The average nonresident vacationer during summer months spent $58 per day and stayed six nights in the state, the study found.

After the study’s release, Montana created more bike-in camping spots at state parks, and the Department of Transportation is working toward changing its policy on the placement of highway rumble strips to be more bike-friendly, Nickerson said.

Florida Senate President Andy Gardiner, an avid cyclist, has tried for years to raise his state’s profile as a cycling state. A robust system of bicycling trails would not only make cycling safer and more fun but would help recruit younger people to move to Florida, he said.

This year Gardiner, a Republican, pushed through a change in the way vehicle registration fees are spent to redirect $25 million every year to a statewide network of bike paths. “It’s a lot of money for a long time,” Gardiner said. “This will put us onstage with other states.”

Mix of Funding

Funding for bicycling and walking projects comes from federal, state and local sources. It’s difficult to compare spending by state because some report stand-alone bicycle and pedestrian ventures while others report them as part of larger highway plans, the Alliance for Biking and Walking said.

States spend, on average, less than 2 percent of state budgets and about 2 percent of federal funds on bicycling and walking projects, the group said.

But the numbers are increasing. “Some states now recognize that bicycling is an attribute that cannot only make a state healthier and fitter but can also draw high-quality employers, economic growth and tourism,” said Douglas Shinkle, a transportation policy expert for theNational Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).

“The new way of thinking emphasizes looking at bicycling as a legitimate means of transportation and worthy of transportation dollars,” Shinkle said. “That’s much more the case now than 10 or 15 years ago.”

In Washington state, for example, the 2005 transportation package included $72 million for biking and walking projects over 16 years, whereas this year’s package, over the same time frame, funneled $500 million to such projects.

Blake Trask, state policy director of Washington Bikes, said the most recent package garnered support from both sides of the aisle. Local chambers of commerce, tourism offices and businesses all want to promote their local economies through cycling, Trask said.

Democratic Mayor Jeri Muoio of West Palm Beach wants to make her Florida city of 102,000 residents one of the most bike-friendly in the nation. She was among the officials from 13 U.S. cities who visited Copenhagen in September on a Knight Foundation-funded trip to learn how the European city makes bicycling easy and safe.

“People take bicycles in Copenhagen not because it’s a green thing to do or it is good exercise but because it’s the easiest way to get from Point A to Point B,” Muoio said. “We’re still tied to our cars.”

Indeed, many critics of bike-friendly measures argue that scarce transportation dollars should pay for relieving congested streets and highways and shoring up unsafe bridges for motorists who pay gas and vehicle taxes. Bicycle advocates counter that they own cars as well as bikes and that they do pay taxes. Political views also play a role.

“We don’t want federal dollars paying for local projects,” said Mike Krause, vice president of operations for the Denver-based Independence Institute, a proponent of free markets and limited government. “It’s not right to make taxpayers in California and Maryland pay for bike lanes in Colorado.”

Seeking Safer Streets

Massachusetts has set a goal of tripling the number of biking, walking and mass transit trips between 2010 and 2030. But cyclists in the state often complain about dangerous streets, so Massachusetts is studying bike paths that are separated physically from both motor vehicles and pedestrians. Such protected lanes have been in use in Europe for decades but are rare here.

The state’s transportation agency this month issued the first statewide guide to designing and building such lanes. “Many people—including me—are reluctant to bicycle adjacent to busy roadways alongside fast-moving traffic. That’s where separated bicycle facilities come in,” Stephanie Pollack, Massachusetts secretary of transportation, said in an introduction to the guide.

But Randal O’Toole of the libertarian Cato Institute questioned the wisdom of that approach. O’Toole, a devoted cyclist who said he has never commuted to work by car, said separate bike trails are expensive and many cyclists don’t end up using them. O’Toole also is opposed to narrowing city streets for separate bike lanes because that could increase traffic congestion.

Rather than building “glitzy projects,” he said localities should choose streets parallel to major thoroughfares and minimize the number of signals and stop signs cyclists encounter there, remove rumble strips and widen shoulders. If you want to encourage tourism and spur economic growth, he said, sponsor bike races and other events to bring in cyclists and temporarily close off city streets.

“What needs to be done is figure out ways to make streets safer for bikes without being hostile to cars,” O’Toole said.

Safe-passing laws are another alternative to separate bike trails and lanes. Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia have laws requiring motorists to allow 3 feet when passing bicycles, as of October 2015, according to NCSL. Pennsylvania went a foot farther to a 4-foot passing law. Nine other states generally require motorists to pass at a safe distance.

Texas is among 16 states that have no safe-passing law. State Sen. Rodney Ellis, a Democrat, has tried unsuccessfully over the years to persuade Texas legislators to pass safe-passing and other bills to promote cycling.

Ellis loves to bike, and he knows one way to change minds: Get elected officials “passionate about biking on a personal level.” Then, he said, they could make the next step and be passionate about policy.

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